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The Indian government has said that 62 TV news channels and 76 television programmes have followed the ‘Accessibility Standards’ under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 for electronic media to carry captions in the same language or have sign language facility.
“As per the available data, 62 TV news channels and 76 TV programmes have been made accessible (for the differently abled people),” Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur informed the Lok Sabha (Lower House of parliament) on Tuesday, in reply to queries from fellow parliamentarians as to whether the government had data regarding the TV channels that comply with accessibility standards.
The Minister also said that the MIB had formulated and issued ‘Accessibility Standards for Persons with Disabilities in Television Programmes’ in September 2019.
The said standards prescribe that the broadcasters make TV programmes and news content more accessible and inclusive through implementing subtitles/captions/sign-language in a phased manner. The language of the closed captioning or subtitles shall be the language of the content.
According to Thakur, the Ministry had issued an advisory to all private satellite TV channels to carry TV programmes with sign language for national events like Republic Day and Independence Day so that differently abled people could access them.
India’s pubcaster Prasar Bharati, according to Thakur, carries sign language news bulletins for hearing impaired persons daily on its DD News channel. Prasar Bharati also provides the feed of these bulletins to all private satellite news channels for inclusion in their broadcast free of cost.
In addition, Prasar Bharati telecasts sign language versions of events of national importance on its channels, which include addresses to the nation by the President of India on the eve of the Independence Day and Republic Day, and also live telecast of Independence Day and Republic Day events.
“Prasar Bharati has also been carrying live sign language interpretation of major sports events,” the Minister added.
